My parents? Not so much. My grandmother? An astounding person who influenced me more than any other. I was fortunate enough to have her live with me when my daughter was a toddler. Unfortunately, she died before my daughter could really get to develop memories of her. My granddaughter carries her name - Amalia.

What I regret was that I wasn't able to ask my grandfathers a bunch of questions that I have now.

My mother's father, younger than I am now, spent the war building camps for the Army, and then sat as a judge on a war crimes tribunal for a concentration camp after the war. He got to the camp not long after our troops liberated it, and saw the state of the survivors. All of the Nazi bestiality was still in place and hadn't been sanitized. He then spent a year hearing testimony from the survivors, and sending a number of the Nazi personnel to the gallows.

This is the sort of thing that we hear about third and fourth hand, and how horrible it was. And, here was someone who had a behind the bench seat.

My parents were awesome too, but I didn't realize that until much later, and, maybe in the case of my mother, too late. But now, if I were asked who the most important person was in forming my life, I would say my father in how he has lived his life, and, given that he spent almost 50 years in my profession, how he practiced law.